Category Archives: Myth & Legend

Hungry Heart

Posted on May 7, 2023 by JE

Typo of the day is hamelt, for an intended Hamlet. Clearly I should not have skipped lunch.

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WTF?

Posted on May 6, 2023 by JE

I’m looking around online for editions of the Hrafnistumannasǫgur—which is a perfectly normal thing to do on Friday night; I don’t care what the kids down at the sock hop say—and I found a pretty decent edition for the third … Continue reading →

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Early Bloomer

Posted on April 30, 2023 by JE

One of the weirder characters in the saga I’m reading is a guy named Vagn Ákason, a sort of medieval Neoptolemus. He killed 3 men by the time he was 9. When he was 12, he commanded two pirate ships … Continue reading →

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Pointing Toward the End

Posted on April 29, 2023 by JE

Wearing my grading face (which strongly resembles Mung making the Sign of Mung).

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Viking-Era Marriage

Posted on April 27, 2023 by JE

A pleasingly domestic line in the saga I’m currently reading (which is mostly about war and killing). Ráðahagr Áka stendr með miklum blóma.—Jómsvíkinga Saga 17“Áka stands marriage with great bloom.” That’s the kind of marriage to have. I hope Þórgunn … Continue reading →

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Joans Against the Moon Men

Posted on April 26, 2023 by JE

I misread a student’s handwriting and thought they had written “Prester Joan” (instead of “Prester John”). Now I can’t stop thinking of Prester Joan teaming up with Pope Joan to, I don’t know, conquer the moon or something. [edited to … Continue reading →

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A Ganelon By Any Other Name…

Posted on April 11, 2023 by JE

Typo of the day (which I discovered in an old slideshow from earlier this year): Gabolen. I’d intended to write Ganelon (the sinister traitor-knight in Charlemagne’s court). But Gabolen sounds like a pretty convincing name; maybe he/she/it will appear in … Continue reading →

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The Hood, the Bad, and the Bitey

Posted on April 8, 2023 by JE

I was looking up something else in Cleasby & Vigfusson’s Old Norse dictionary when my eye fell on gríma, meaning “a kind of hood or cowl”; by extension “the night”. A lot of badasses, starting with Óðin, are called Grímr … Continue reading →

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Fífling Around

Posted on March 26, 2023 by JE

I fell into the dictionary again today and learned that Old Norse fífl (“fool”) also meant “monster” (cf Old English fifal “monster”), hence the fíflmegir (“monster men”) who rowed the hellship from Muspellheim that Loki steered on the way to Ragnarǫk. I wondered if the … Continue reading →

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Words on the Wing

Posted on March 25, 2023 by JE

I was reading the Eddas today, which is what Tolkien would probably be doing on Re(re)ading Tolkien Day, and I was struck by a pair of birdy lines: Ǫrn mun hlakka,  slítr nái niðfǫlr. —Vǫluspá (quoted in Snorri, Gylfaginning 50) … Continue reading →

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